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Samsung Sues Aussie Patent Office In Apple Suit, Apple Sues Back
schliz writes "Samsung has sued the Australian patent commissioner — and by extension the Australian Government — in an attempt to force a review of patents key to its global battle with smartphone rival Apple. The Korean manufacturer claims that the commissioner should not have been able to grant four patents used by Apple in its case against Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1. The Government solicitor will face Samsung in court on June 25." Not to be outdone, niftydude points out that Apple has filed a motion in a California court to prevent Samsung selling its latest smartphone, the Galaxy S III in the US.
Apple called Samsung a doodoo head and is currently grounded.
Mutually Assured Destruction:
This is like the nuclear deterant, but without the massive death toll to keep it at bay.
They should all sue each other out of the market and let companies who are not such tools have a shot at the market.
What a strange outfit to sue someone
I was wondering how long this kind of thing would take. companies suing the patent authorities for granting f-ing stupid patents that are so broad that they cover anything.
@Random_Adam
Sometimes a sig doesn't have to be funny!!
Im starting to really hate all this sue shit... its fucking retarded... pantents are outdated and the rules for getting a patent are retarded. How can you get a patent for the move of swipeing a screen to a particular way for example.
Remake of the whole system is needed. (and less stupid companies)
letting the consumer/market decide? Isn't this what capitalism is about, the consumers choose based on price, quality, features etc..... We seem to be in some sort of meta capitalist market now where the courts decide who can buy what. "All working as intended" ?
Ultimately, lawyers and courts (when used for stuff like this) are overhead costs that are to be minimized. Don't get me wrong: the individual companies can come out better, but the customer always loses. All those lawyers are paid by the customers.
And I think we'd be better off without them.
I've never seen two children running so fast as when they both want to be first to the teacher to tell on the other. God I hope these corporations don't grow up, or we'll have a scene from Deus Ex. I'm call it now. One of these corps will order a hit on the HQ or R&D site and that'll be the end of this.
Isn't Apple that all the time sues Samsung or, (... put another Android phone maker here).
Would it mean that Apple is losing more and more ground compared to Android ? Patent justice is the last method when you have no more alternative to compete.
RIP Steve Jobs
Apple claimed that the new phone, which is yet to go on sale in the US but went on sale in Australia last week, could cause it "irreparable harm," citing press reports that mobile companies had already sold more than nine million units in pre-orders.
Hardly surprising that Apple is worried, according to the Telegraph the Samsung Galaxy S3 has now overtaken the iPhone 4S as the UK's most popular phone.
This technology IP "war" is ridiculous. If motor manufacturers had the same intent there would only ever be one model with an IP registered "internal combustion engine" No other such engine would pass these idiotic patent laws. This is the greatest limitation to the development of new technology solutions. It is a fact that all new developments are built on previous knowledge. If this continues all development will stall, we might as well go back to the stone age.
I was wondering how you thought your upcoming iPhone5 stacked up against the S3. It's too close to launch to change it now, so these desperate acts speak volumes.
Isn't the iphone 90% or so made by samsung?
Didn't samsung open a new texas factory just for chips and stuff used in iphones?
I really don't understand why they should battle each other when they are dependandt on each other...
Am I the only one whose mind went straight to the fruit of the loom guy dressed as an apple when reading the headline "samsung sues aussie patent office in apple suit?"
The USPTO in particular should be drowning in a sea of lawsuits by now. They'll only change their grant-by-default policy when rubberstamping idiotic obvious non-inventions costs them more than it earns them.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Those two should just screw and get it over with.
The courts get fed up and ban every single mobile company on the planet from selling phones for a year. Then they can come back in to apologize for their shit and maybe they'll be allowed to play again.
Your business is making and selling phones, not preventing other people from making and selling phones. I'm no longer buying any electronics product of any company who is plaintiff in a patent infringement case.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...where governments do not interfere in things like this, and the big cellphone companies generally do not consider it worth it to litigate on points like this (even in the more progressive African countries that have stable judicial systems).
This means that cellphones are forced to compete on the basis of some of the most unheard of things, y'know, things line "price" and "features".
This is getting ridiculous. I know the lawyers are having fun and getting rich, but there's no way this system of intellectual property will hold for much longer.
Not sure whether this is a stroke of genius or insanity on the part of Samsung's legal team, as it does create some potential conflict of interest issues for the other party, but as you say - "let's take the government to court" seldom ends well. It's also going to be interesting from the practical point of view; a lawyer is supposedly an impartial representative of their client, and it's kind of hard to be impartial when you arethe client. This is why you will quite often see law firms and members of the legal profession appoint an outside council to represent themselves when they are being taken to court themselves; the additional perspectives of an unbiased and unblinkered view can be worth paying for.
It's certainly a novel strategy though; has anyone actually sued a patent office in this way, and essentially accusing them of incompentence in the process, before? If it works here, it might be an interesting tactic to try in the other havens of patent insanity like the Eastern District of Texas...
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Sorry, the Examiner bears the full brunt, and including 'in the field' prior art like arguments. Unlike the US, the drug LIPITOR also had a loss on selective claims. What you choose to withhold (apple) could loose this case, but win others. The prior art of LG , although reasonable, may not get a look in.
While just sitting around the other day thinking about the current state of affairs in the world of technology, I thought of a new acronym.
Paper
Agreements
That
Encumber
New
Technology
Every time I read news like this, it just pops out in my head.
What acronyms have you come up with?
They would have patented the use of four wheels.
The point is that in other industries, we do not see the petty suits over similarities. Perhaps we don't see them because we aren't looking. But the only issue I recall even remotely similar to this in terms of pettiness is the patent on "rotating table inside of microwave oven." For the longest time, people had to buy little devices or turn their food by hand because the ones with rotating tables inside were too expensive and the patent holder's license was too high.
I suppose we are seeing SOME patent issues in cars now that I think about it. Toyota holds patents related to the Prius pretty close and it's literally keeping hybrids from being developed. Yes, there are other hybrids out there. Just not many and not as successful. It's not that people don't want them, it's that they don't all want the same frikken car!
Lawyers don't want this to end. The judges aren't tired of this either... perhaps some are, but certainly not the ones in East Texas. The other parts of government are too busy collecting contributions and donations, walking through revolving doors and anything except "bribery" to even consider reform or intervention.
We'll just have to be content watching goliaths tear each other apart and all that.
How is there no public outrage over apple doing this?
Finally, someone has sued the world patent offices for their culpability for the trillions of dollars per year caused by their dangerous incompetence in granting tens of thousands of completely invalid patents every year -- obvious solutions to trivial problems that were already invented. 99% of all software patents are invalid!
Apple uses like 30%+ of Samsung components in their iOS devices. Samsung is getting rich off of that fact and using the stuff they learned making iOS device components in their own line of Android components. Apple has been enjoying the relative supply stability, quality and reliability of Samsung parts.
One of these companies need to grow a set of balls and do one of two things:
If Apple grows a pair first then dump using Samsung parts in retaliation for all the cloning of Apple products Samsung has done in the past. Apple needs to end that partnership and work with smaller component companies who would be incapable of building their own competitive copy-cat products.
If Samsung grows a pair fist then stop supplying Apple parts because Apple is being a bunch of petty retards and focus solely on Android devices and supplying to other vendors who are not greedy self-absorbed bastards.
Seriously, this is the dumbest and strangest pairing of companies that both hate each other but still enjoy the reach-arounds they have been giving each other for the last 5 years.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
It's a good thing we have these patents to protect intellectual property and ensure that innovation is rewarded by preventing large corporations from achieving complete lock-out of competitors due solely to the absurd sums of money they can throw around. I enjoy paying hundreds of dollars for an overpriced and technically obsolete piece of technology exclusively because its manufacturer has the economic and political clout to prevent competing devices from being sold in relevant markets throughout the world.
Fuck Apple.
No, seriously, please keep it going - you're doing more to the current IP madness to a grinding halt than any companies before you... thanks for showing the general public how patently insane the current situation is...
stop feeding the lawyers and get on the the business of feeding R&D and competing on the merit of your product.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once